Town of Ulster enlists company to check for underground contamination near dry cleaner

By WILLIAM J. KEMBLE

Thursday, March 7, 2013

TOWN OF ULSTER, N.Y. -- Three monitoring wells will be drilled to determine whether a plume of contamination is expanding from American Cleaners at 734 Ulster Ave., the Ulster Town Board has decided.

The board on Thursday approved hiring the company Mid-Hudson Geosciences to do the work.

Town Supervisor James Quigley said the work apparently won't cost the town anything because "I believe there is an environmental insurance policy in effect for this property, so this is part of (American Cleaners') cost. They are responsible for their clean-up."

A town map of the site shows a plume of tetrachloroethylene (perchloroethylene), also called PCE or perc, concentrated behind American Cleaners and moving west under Ulster Avenue.

"It appears that there were dry-cleaning fluids from American Cleaners that penetrated the groundwater," Quigley said. "What the DEC (state Department of Environmental Conservation) has done is establish ... (three) monitoring wells around the site."

Erez Halevah, who owns the American Cleaners property, said on Friday that the contamination was discovered "10 or 11 years ago" after a fuel oil tank was removed. He said soil testing did not find oil leaks but did find the residue of chemicals used in dry cleaning.

"They found a very small trace of perc ... which is what they use to clean the clothes," he said. "We voluntarily called the state and joined a ... voluntary clean-up."

Halevah estimated he spent $20,000 to $30,000 on that effort.

Halevah said he bought the property and opened the business 31 years ago but does not know how the chemicals came in contact with the soil.

American Cleaners now is run by Jay Scanlon, who bought the business but not the property seven years ago. He said state inspections are done annually.

"We run it right," Scanlon said. "We have all our equipment tested once a year. We have spill-containment tanks."

Scanlon said the clean-up is necessary because of revisions in state environmental regulations for the dry-cleaning industry.

"Years ago, what was acceptable changed," he said.

The three monitoring wells are to be drilled along a town right-of-way on Lincoln Park Place, about 600 feet from the known location of the plume.

"What the DEC wants to do is establish testing wells down here to see if there is, in fact, other migration," Quigley said. "I think this is an act of caution just to determine the extent if any of the migration."

A report prepared for the town by Jensen Engineering of Poughkeepsie states the contamination has been "detected in groundwater between 9.5 and 16 feet below ground surface."

"This is an area where we have public water supply and public sewer supply (rather than wells and private septic systems), so there is no danger to public health," Quigley said. "This is also a developed area, so there is no building going on or major excavation."